Close encounters of the third kind

The weather's been glorious in London over the past few days and yesterday I took my bike out for a spin.  I needed to get to work for a few minutes and I thought it would be nicer to cycle than to be stuck in a queue of traffic in the car; public transport was inconvenient this weekend because of closures for track improvement work.  It was about an hour on the bike to work and an hour back, with a couple of hours of meandering about parks and having tea plus the brief moments at work; all in all a pleasant way to spend a sunny Saturday.

Cycling in the city was mostly uneventful but the coaches along the Victoria Embankment, heading west, did present some problems.  Even as  a driver I have often disliked the fact that they are parked up yet taking up half a lane.  Its a busy road and having half a lane taken up by parked vehicles doesn't help.  It means that any car that is on the left hand lane will eventually have to venture right to get around them, with the other cars in the other lanes trying to readjust their positions so that everybody will fit on one and a half lanes.  At some point it will become difficult to figure out how many lanes people intend to form, especially when cars jam up further up at the right turn leading to Trafalgar Square and people start trying to get around them by venturing left.  Now imagine if you were a cyclist amongst all this.  

The other thing is that the coach drivers get far too close to cyclists on this stretch of road.  I was behind another cyclist when a coach passed me from behind.  I felt at the time that it was too close to me and when I saw him pass the bike in front it was obvious that the cyclist would have been able to touch the coach with his arm out bent 90 degrees at his elbow.  That is far too close, the coach should have kept back if there was not enough space to overtake but it was particularly irritating that there was an empty lane on the right of the coach.  This total disrespect for cyclists while in the control of a large vehicle- bullying behaviour- is unacceptable.    

Cyclists in the city have started wearing helmet cameras to fillm aggressive behaviour from other road users.  I think I might get one too.